[Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

[Will Pines via athen-list]

Kevin,
Thank you for this succinct reality check!
I JUST had this conversation as a consult with our campus team tasked with
supporting faculty and accessible (universal design / remediation).


On Fri, Feb 6, 2026 at 9:08 AM Kevin Andrews via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> Jumping in with some lived-reality perspective from Georgetown, since

> we’re actively navigating this right now under pretty real austerity

> conditions.

>

>

> We have an Acrobat Pro *site license*, and I want to be clear for folks

> reading along: that solves licensing, not remediation. At scale, Acrobat

> helps with OCR and basic tagging, but it does not eliminate the human labor

> required for structure, reading order, tables, math, figures, or meaningful

> alt text—especially for STEM content. That’s where time and money actually

> go.

>

>

> Budget is a huge constraint for us at the moment, so the conversation

> internally has had to shift from “how do we make everything accessible” to

> “how do we make defensible, impact-driven decisions.” That’s meant being

> very explicit about tradeoffs:

>

>    -

>

>    Not all legacy PDFs are equal in risk or usage.

>    -

>

>    Automated tools are, at best, a first pass—not an end state.

>    -

>

>    Vendor remediation often scopes *out* alt text, math, and complex

>    figures unless you pay significantly more.

>    -

>

>    Retrofitting thousands of documents is often more expensive than

>    replacing or re-authoring the most critical ones over time.

>

>

> What’s been most helpful for us is framing this as *triage and lifecycle

> management*, not a one-time cleanup project: prioritizing high-use /

> high-risk materials, de-emphasizing low-traffic archives, and being honest

> with stakeholders about what’s achievable under current financial

> conditions.

>

>

> No silver bullets here—just hard constraints and deliberate choices.

> Sharing in case it’s useful context for others facing the same pressures.

>

>

> On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 9:22 PM Monica Olsson via athen-list <

> athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:

>

>> Hi Amy, I plan to send you a document about Doc Access and security and

>> thought that I had stated this in a prior email. Not a lot of folks know

>> about the tool yet, in fact we (SBCTC) are they very reason a Canvas LTI

>> tool even exists for the Doc Access tool. They built it for us :) I expect

>> if our trial is successful and the tool is used at scale (really any scale)

>> they will see a ton of higher ed clients over night…but we are kind of

>> getting in at the beta stage. So, your inquiry to ATHEN may open a can of

>> worms that I'm not entirely prepared for, but I guess it puts the tool on

>> people's radar too!

>>

>> Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

>> ------------------------------

>> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

>> behalf of Amy Rovner via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> *Sent:* Thursday, February 5, 2026 5:46:49 PM

>> *To:* Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>; Access Technology

>> Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>; Susan Kelmer <

>> Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>; Joshua Hori <jhori at ucdavis.edu>

>> *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>>

>> * [Sent from outside SBCTC] *

>>

>> I'm very interested in the security of DocAccess. I hear that it can be

>> embedded in Canvas. Is that how you are using it? I'm very suspect when

>> companies using AI are too close to student data.

>>

>> Thank you!

>> Amy

>>

>> *Amy Rovner, MPH RD*

>> Director eLearning Services

>> Accessible IT Coordinator

>>

>> *Shoreline Community College*

>>

>> *www.shoreline.edu <http://www.shoreline.edu/>*  |  206.546.6937

>>

>> eLearning Office: 206.546.6966

>>

>> eLearning Email: *elearning at shoreline.edu <elearning at shoreline.edu>*

>>

>> *Shoreline Support Center <https://support.shoreline.edu/>*

>>

>>

>> [image: Shoreline logo with tagline, Engage. Achieve.]

>> ------------------------------

>> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

>> behalf of Joshua Hori via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2026 2:56 PM

>> *To:* Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>; Access Technology

>> Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>; Susan Kelmer <

>> Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>

>> *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>>

>> [ CAUTION: This email originated from outside Shoreline Community

>> College. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the

>> sender and know the content is safe. ]

>>

>> DocAccess has been looking very interesting. They not only use AI for alt

>> tags but also integrate with AIRA.io to provide human audio descriptions of

>> images.

>>

>> Best,

>>

>> Joshua

>>

>> *From: *athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

>> behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> *Date: *Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 8:16 AM

>> *To: *Access Technology Higher Education Network <

>> athen-list at u.washington.edu>, Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>

>> *Subject: *Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>>

>> So far everyone I've looked at will do large-scale projects, but not

>> write alt text (though they'll include it if you write it). I used Allyant

>> for outsourcing PDFs at the time.

>>

>> Since I'm feeling snarky....why not just dump them in an ABBYY hot folder

>> and call it a day? They're not going to make accessible STEM PDFs anyway,

>> so why waste time finding the best option? 🙃

>>

>> Sagan Wallace

>>

>> *they/them*

>> ------------------------------

>> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

>> behalf of Susan Kelmer via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 28, 2026 6:42 AM

>> *To:* Access Technology Higher Education Network <

>> athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> *Subject:* [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>>

>>

>> [This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and

>> attachments.]

>> I hope everyone's semester has gotten off to a bang-up start!

>>

>> A department on my campus has a enormous stockpile of

>> scientific/engineering-type PDFs that are publicly available, and that

>> department wants to undertake turning them all into accessible documents.

>> Yes, they really want to do this, and first they asked me if I wanted to

>> take on the project.

>>

>> No thanks.

>>

>> So I'm looking for recommendations for any large-scale PDF remediation

>> companies that could do this kind of work.   Please and thanks.

>>

>> *Susan Kelmer*

>> Alternate Format Production Program Manager

>> Disability Services

>> Division of Student Life

>> *T* 303 735 4836

>> *www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices

>> <http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices>*

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> athen-list mailing list

>> athen-list at mailman22.u.washington.edu

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>>

>

>

> --

> Best Regards,

> Kevin Andrews

> Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator

> University Information Services

> Georgetown University

>

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> athen-list mailing list

> athen-list at mailman22.u.washington.edu

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>



-- 


Best,

*WILL PINES*, *Disability Specialist*

Accessible Technology Specialist

Student Disability Resource Center

*he/him/his*



University of California, Riverside

900 University Avenue

1228 Student Services Building

Riverside, CA 92521

Phone: 951-827-3861 | Email: wilbert.pines at ucr.edu



Schedule an Appointment <https://bit.ly/30ghhv1>



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“A mind stretched by new experiences will never go back to its original
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